


Unless There's Children Crying

by sesalina



Category: Doctor Who, Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesalina/pseuds/sesalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his first day of high school Kurt finds himself crying alone on an old playground, not wanting to go home as not to worry his father. A few simple words from a weirdly dressed stranger encourage him to pull through the next few years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unless There's Children Crying

**Author's Note:**

> Boring classes made me draw it (thus the checkered paper) - more boring classes made me write it.
> 
> Disclaimer: Kurt Hummel belongs to Fox, the Doctor and Amy to BBC, I own nothing, I don't make any money with this, the usual.

  
  
_What was_  
Kurt Hummel had hoped that things would get better after middle shool. But they didn’t. Everything only ever got so much worse.  
When he had walked to school that morning, he had been hoping the new school would give him a chance to start anew and would put a stop to people calling him a girl or a fairy. Instead, he had found himself in a dumpster the moment he set foot on school grounds. An oversized Neanderthal had looked down on him, informing him that this was where fags belonged.  
He felt tears sting in his eyes at the thought of the shame he had felt when he had climbed out of the dumpster, people walking by, their eyes just washing over him as if this was normality.  
Life sucked.  
Life sucked big time.  
He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, but the flow wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t let his dad see him like this – Kurt knew it would break his heart.  
So instead of going home, he stopped by the old playground he used to go to when he was younger. Hardly anyone ever came here. It was just a swingset and a small sandbox, secluded from the outside world by a thicket of bushes. The reason nobody ever came here lay two blocks up the street, a newer, bigger, fancier playground, always crowded with mothers sitting on the benches and watching their breed play. Kurt never liked it there. He chose self-inflicted loneliness over being ignored by the other kids or teased for what he was wearing. Still, he used this playground for the very same reason.  
He sat down on the swingset and stared into empty space. Wasn’t it supposed to get better? Wasn’t that what people kept telling themselves and everyone who wanted to hear it? ‚It gets better’? Well right now, as for the last 14 years, it didn’t. And as every time it got worse, Kurt started to wonder if the direction his life was heading in would ever change.  
In that moment, he caught a glimpse of a changed life.  
„Why are you crying?“  
It was a question so straight forward, and so unusual when normally, no-one, exept maybe his dad, ever seemed to care, that Kurt was at a loss of words for some seconds, simply staring in wonder at the man who had asked. The man itself was a wonder, an abnormity of fashion, wearing a smorgasbord of odd clothes that somehow, for some odd reason, worked in this combination and on this man. Kurt blinked slowly, still trying to take in the fact that someone actually seemed to care, then changed his baffled face into as much of a bitch glare as one can manage with puffy eyes and tear-strained cheeks.  
„I seriously don’t know why I should tell you, but somehow you catched me in a mood where telling random strangers with british accents about my silly problems sounds like a good idea. Lucky you.“  
The man just smiled at that, not interrupting or stopping Kurt form telling his story, but beckoning him to move on.  
„It’s just, everything only ever goes downwards. I thought grade school was hell, but then I got to middle school. I though it couldn’t get any worse than that, but then, on my first day of high school, some exceptionally nice guys had the glorius idea of tossing me into a dumpster and ruining my favourite shirt with a slushie. And nobody seemed to care.“  
The stranger looked at him with sadness in the eyes.  
„Life isn’t always good, nor is it fair. Sometimes, when it seems the most hopeless, all you can do is hold on and wait for something better to come along, I should know, I had a lot of those moments. With a lot of bad luck, all the worst stuff that might happen lands at the beginning of your life, right when you need it the least and when it’s the hardest to hold on. But there’s two things you always have to remember.  
„One. Between all those people who look away, who don’t want to see or who are afraid to help, there’s always someone who cares. Never forget about your friends.  
„And two, very important, there’s still good stuff to come. And a hell of a lot of good stuff, in your case. Broadway kind of good. Being able to change the world kind of good. You don’t want to miss out on that, do you?“  
Kurt just shrugged.  
„I guess I’m asking for the bad stuff. Look at me: I never seem to fit in when everyone expects me to. I dress too flamboyant, my voice is unnerving and I hold my head high when I should bow and run away. Or maybe I just have a face that says ‚go on, bully me, it’ll be fun’. But every time I try to fit in, I just don’t feel like myself, you know?“  
„Look at me, do I look like I like to fit in? But, really, you’re brilliant. You’re brilliant and bow ties are cool, don’t ever forget that. Be extraordinary... defy gravity, Kurt.“  
And just like that, the man walked away.  
After some time, Kurt wondered if he had ever actually been there. But Kurt Hummel held on. He held of when he was shoved into lockers on daily basis, when his first kiss was stolen by a closeted bully, when he was receiving death threats and when he had to change schools and leave his friends behind. – And when the first male Elphaba belted out the final notes of Defying Gravity and let the eyes wander over the audience, he swore he saw a certain man with a bow tie, a tweed jacked and the most impossible hair sitting in the front row, talking to a red-headed woman and looking not a minute older than that day on the playground.  
***  
 _What will be_  
While the rational part of him argued that he was probably just going insane from the pressure of his first broadway lead performance, another part of him kept scanning the crowd that had gathered in front of the stage door for red bowties and elbow patches (the first being cool, the latter... not so much.), but instead, his eye was caught by a head of red hair pulling along, yes, just the bowtie and elbow patches he was looking for.  
„Come on, move faster, you moron! I want to meet him! You failed to take me to Rio yet again, so at least let me have an autograph!“ A female voice with a thick scottish accent called.  
The man with the bow tie answered with a mass of babbling that was being swallowed by the general chaos that was the crowd.  
Kurt couldn’t help but stare at him. It was not just the bow tie, the tweed jacked and the hair that didn’t seem to be influenced by the laws of physics, this guy looked exactly like the man he had met once, back when he was in high school.  
„How can it be you?“ he whispered, as the man and his – what, girlfriend? Best friend? Beard? – arrived in front of him.  
The woman seemed to have catched that and turned to her companion.  
„Doctor, do you know him personally? Can you introduce me?“ The man slash hallucination (who apparently was a doctor) just smiled at her with a boyish smile.  
„No, Amy, I don’t think I know him yet, but you know, wibbly-wobbly-„  
„-timey-wimey. Got it.“  
„And no, you can’t hook up with him. Haven’t you listened to a word of what I was saying earlier?“  
Amy pulled a face.  
„But he’s hot!“  
„He is also married.“    
That was when Kurt finally found his voice and interrupted their banter.  
„Even though I might sound crazy right now and you’re probably just a hallucination caused by my jittery nerves... thank you. For what you told me ten years ago on that playground.“  
He looked the man in the eyes and smiled unsurely.  
„I – just ... thank you.“  
And just like that, he walked away, back through the stage door, leaving the confused crowd behind, and leaving the Doctor to swagger back to his TARDIS, telling Amy that before he’d finally take her to Rio, he had to go one place else.  
Kurt Hummel-Anderson never knew if this man was real or only existed in his fantasy, he never told anyone about him, either. However, people kept wondering who the mysterious doctor was who was mentioned in every single acceptance speech Kurt ever held. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments would be wonderful :)


End file.
